mondar said:
cybershark5886 said:
I have taken introductory level New Testament Greek and we discussed the usage of eis in various passages, and in certain contexts it can simply mean "in". Eis is more precisely understood as "into" in cases - for example - where it is used in conjunction with baptism: baptism "into" the water, or "into" the Spirit. The distinction between "in" an "into" here in this particular passage is virtually null in any case, because if anyone thought "believe in" meant "think of" or "intellectually accept" Christ then they misunderstood the entire meaning of the verse. "Whosoever believes in Him" (John 3:16) means to place trust in something outside yourself, indeed even "into Christ". If we do not trust Christ, the words He has spoken, or trust that the Gospel (Christ's atonement and resurrection) is true then we cannot receive salvation through faith. "In" is a correct/sufficient translation here at any rate, it just must be properly understood.
Josh, good post. The whole point of cognative or mere intellectual acceptance of certain facts has little to do with the greek prepositions. Worse yet, after your post more comments were made that separate the biblical concepts of faith and belief. Yet both words are english translations of the greek word "pisteuw."
I am curious what texts you used to learn grammar? If you are familiar with Dana and Mante, there is a good chart on the meaning of the prepositions. I am referring to the chart with the circle.
Thanks mondar. Yes I think understanding the concept of faith is very key. And I, as I imagine you might also, understand the point which the author is trying to make in the OP, however I
don't necessarily think the grammar must be interpreted to this degree to get the idea. Now not to belittle the fact that "
eis" is used, since it is less common than "en" (if I am not mistaken), but as I stated "
eis" can still be used to mean "in" and some good concordances will tell you that. Greek, as does Hebrew, has a
rich background of meaning for its words that can have subtle nuances in them, and shooting from the hip with some speculation I might venture a guess that "eis" carries the additional idea of action or movement toward a position, while "en" may represent just being at that position (not necessarily the process of getting there), but since they both contain the idea of "in" within them it would be unreasonable to say that there is never any overlap in their usage.
Another interesting concept of the subtleties of Greek that I learned from my Greek course was in relation to the Greek word "
aeon" (which is of course the center of large bodies of errant doctrine based on a single word) but aside from the common discussions of the significance of "
aeon", I had asked my Greek professor why, or how, aeon can in some contexts be translated "world" and in others "age", and he said that the idea to the Greeks for that word carries both meanings together intrinsically probably in the sense of "
the world as we presently know it", which incorporates not only the physical object of "the world" but also the "time" aspect of it as well. And that can also lend understanding to the idea of the end of an "age", where the world as we used to know it has now changed, some major shift took place that has entered the world into a new "era". At anyrate, that illustration was only to show that Greek words can have dual (or more) layers of meaning, and that some are tied together with subtle meaning, and perhaps that can help explain the slight qualitative difference between "en" and "eis". But as I said before I think they basically mean the same thing doctrinally here: placing faith and trust in Christ.
Oh, and to answer your question we used Mounce's material, with the book, workbook, and I personally also bought the flash cards. Mounce has a good introduction to Greek. I haven't finished the whole book though. I'm trying to find some spare time to go back an refresh my memory on some of the things I learned from that class.
God Bless,
~Josh
